May 20, 1893] 
THE EISHING GAZETTE 
369 
CH AK AC'l’ERISTIC NORWE GIAN 
STREAMS. 
{Gontimied from page 232.) 
Owing to the proximity of high, and in many 
cases glacier clad mountains, there is but one 
really line salmon river along the extensive coasts 
of the three groat and .picturesque arms of the 
sea, the Hardanger, Sogne, and Nord Fjords. In 
these districts there are many streams where 
excellent sport is obtained with the rod, but the 
great majority of the ascending fish consist of 
sea and bull trout, which latter often run to a 
large size, specimens of from 1.51b. to 201b. being 
not infrequent, while still larger ones have been 
killed. So handsome and well proportioned are 
rnany of these fish that none but an expert could 
distinguish them from salmon proper, and some 
are doubtless the results of crossing with the 
latter. For its size, one of the best examples of 
this type of river used to be the Stryn, which has 
its sources among the great Justedal glaciers, as 
many as lOOOlb. of sea and bull trout having been 
killed in a fortnight by two rods on the seven 
miles of its course from the Opstryn Lake, 
whence it issues, and the sea; of recent years, how¬ 
ever, the trout have diminished owing to their 
having been severely netted, and the salmon have 
increased. 
In these great fjords there are other rivers also 
frequented by salmon proper, and in which good 
sport is obtained with the rod, but the parts of 
their courses to which the ascending fish have 
access are so limited that no amount of preserving 
and hatching can ever make them first-class 
rivers. The one exception to which I have 
referred above is the Laerdal, which enters salt 
water at the head of the south-eastern arm of the 
great Sogne Fjord. Although there are a good 
many streams throughout the country which 
yield a larger total weight of fish yearly to the 
sportsman, we are inclined to think that, take it 
all round, this is the finest salmon river in 
Norway. 
Descending from the Fille Fjeld through a 
picturesque and beautiful valley, the Laerdal 
fornas a series of clean rocky pools and streams 
which present a perfect picture to the eye of the 
fisherman, and which, moreover, are nearly all 
fishable from the bank. In such water of course 
the salmon fight hard, and from 4,0001b. to tqOOOlb., 
or even more, are taken each season with the rod, 
to say nothing of sea-trout which are also killed 
in large quantities. Apart from its natural attri¬ 
butes, the excellence of this river is to a great 
extent due to the care with wliich it has been 
nursed. For more than forty years it has been 
in English hands, and therefore of course devoted 
entirely to angling purposes, while during many 
of these artificial breeding has been carefully 
carried on. 
When, with delighted eye, the salmon fly-fisher 
gazes upon the dark and troubled pools which 
the Laerdal forms as it foams through its rocky 
pass to the sea, he is apt to compare the sporting 
characteristics of such a river with those of the 
famous Namsen and others of a like type, greatly 
to the disadvantage of the latter. Comparisons, 
however, are said to be odious, and—for the nonce 
at any rate—we will refrain. That salmon should 
ascend the Laerdal with its comparatively high 
temperature in preference to the many glacier-fed 
streams in the neighbourhood is intelligible 
enongh; these fish, when they have the choice, 
much prefer a comparatively warm, moss-brown 
stream, even though it be sluggish in its character 
and have a peatty bed, to the ice cold waters of a 
river which descends from the main ice, and 
whose course, though clean, rocky, and swift, is 
so short that its temperature is not affected by 
the genial influences of the summer sun. 
A conspicuous example of this is afforded in 
one of the rivers of Norsk Finmarken. Salmon 
ascend as far as their confluence, the combined 
waters of the Retkajok and Luobboljok; beyond 
the point of junction, however, they do not ascend 
the former at all, although it is the main river, 
contributing much the larger volume of water, 
and has a clean rocky bed; they prefer the 
smaller volume and moss-coloured waters of the 
Lubboljok with their higher temperature to the 
icy rapids of the Eetka. 
Much more difficult, however, is it to under¬ 
stand why these numerous streams, all emanating 
from the great glacier, which, like a sleeping 
giant, lies back among the mountain tops, and 
whose local characteristics and surroundings are 
so very similar, should differ so much as regards 
the migratory salmonid® which frequent them. 
Most of them certainly may be described as sea- 
trout rivers, as we have already remarked, never¬ 
theless, in many, such as the Justedal and 
Aardal, there is a certain proportion of salmon 
proper, while in the Olden, which flows into an 
arm of the Nord Fjord, and where the further 
ascent of the fish is stopped by a fall little more 
than a mile from the month, these fish prevail. 
Of a very different type is the splendid salmon 
river that passes down the celebrated Romsdal, 
and after sweeping round the base of the Romsdal- 
horn, that towers 3000 feet above, enters the 
fjord at Veblungsnais. The traveller as he drives 
up the valley will admire the residence built by 
the late Mr. Bromley Davenport, and from which 
he and his friends enjoyed magnificent sport for 
so many years ; nestling at the foot of the giant 
mountain, and in a beautiful bend of the river, 
“ Fiva ” is the beau ideal of a fisherman’s home, 
and the innumerable feats performed with the 
rod on the grand pools and streams of the Rauma, 
are they not written in its chronicles ? 
From 1000 to 15001b. a rod used frequently 
to be killed on this fine river with the fly, but 
like many another Norwegian stream, the stake- 
nets with which the coast now swarms have 
injuriously affected it, and the sport obtained is 
not what it used to be. In the five and twenty 
miles of its course that are accessible to salmon, 
the Rauma abounds in rapid, swift flowing water ; 
many of the casts can be fished from the bank, 
and it is the scene of the famous fight with the 
monster salmon so graphically described by the 
popular author of “ Sport.” 
In the mountain tracts of the Dovrefjeld, from 
which it descends, and those lying to the north 
and north-east of Romsdalen, lies some of the 
best ground for wild reindeer in Norway, while 
very good brown trout fishing may be had on 
some of the lakes and tarns. To the rivers which 
flow into the great Trondhjem Fjord, the Gula, 
Stordal, Orkla, &c., we need not refer at length, 
there being nothing specially deserving of notice 
in their individual surroundings. The three 
named above are all fine salmon streams, and 
although necessarily in some degree of torrential 
character, and apt to run out very quickly, they 
afford good sport to many an English salmon 
fisher ; but the stake-nets in the fjord have done 
them great harm, and they are not what they 
used to be. , At Trondhjem itself, the river Nid, 
which drains the surplus waters of the great 
Selbo lake, enters the fjord. A good many 
salmon ascend it, but they are stopped about four 
English miles from the town by a very fine foss, 
which is well worth a visit. Here in early spring 
we have enjoyed some very fair sport, on one 
occasion hooking a heavy fish which, after a 
severe and somewhat prolonged struggle, broke 
the treble gut by which our fly was attached, and 
departed, leaving us lamenting. 
Here in one day Mr. Lloyd and the Honourable 
R. Hutchinson, fishing from the same boat, killed 
with the fly nineteen fish, two of which were 381b. 
each, and none under 121b. 
The first stream of any importance to the north 
of the Trondhjem Fjord is the Namsen, un¬ 
doubtedly the best known river in Norway. 
Fifty years ago it had acquired celebrity among 
English fishermen for the number and size of the 
salmon it contained, and for the freedom with 
which they took the fly. Of the numberless 
angling exploits that have been performed on the 
Namsen in days gone by we will confine ourselves 
to mentioning only one, where an Englishman 
landed to his own rod in the season over 320 fish, 
which together weighed nearly 40001b., and three 
of which exceeded 401b. apiece. A good many fish 
of 501b. and over have been killed on this river, 
but as far as we are aware Sir Hyde Pai’ker’s 
60-pounder has only been beaten once or twice. 
In all Norway there is not a nobler valley than 
Namdal, or a finer salmon river cf its kind. 
After its headlong plunge over the black chasm 
at Fiskum Foss, the great river winds along 
between mountains and pine forests for nigh forty 
miles, in a succession of pools and streams which 
would be hard to beat. Here the mighty volume 
of water sweeps deep and irresistible, but with 
smooth surface, round the base of some pine- 
crowned cliff; here it forms huge whirling eddies, 
among which the floating logs dance and swing; 
here, with rippling surface, it murmurs into a 
glorious pool embedded among rocky walls, and 
here again it foams impetuou.sly down a tremendous 
rapid. Small wonder that for many years this 
grand northern valley has been the favourite 
summer abode of many of our countrymen and 
countrywomen, for life in beautiful Namdal is 
very pleasant, and, although the fishing is all 
from boats, and rather lazy work, very good sport 
is still obtained there, and people endowed with 
superfluous energy had better go elsewhere. 
It would be invidious to name any one beat as 
superior to the others, as owing to their varying 
character they are at their best in different states 
of the water, but the stretch of about fifteen miles 
immediately below Fiskum Foss, where the fish 
are stopped, contains the finest casts. Further 
down towards Namsos considerable deposits of clay 
occur on the banks which do not improve the 
colour of the water, and frequently render angling 
impossible under conditions of weather which do 
not interfere with sport on the upper reaches. 
On these lower beats, too, the pools are huge, ill- 
defined, and uninteresting, while the scenery is 
not so fine as that of the upper valley. 
We have enjoyed many a good fight with the 
Namsen salmon, but still confess to a strong 
proclivity for a stream which we can command 
with a 19-foot rod from terra firma —wading or 
not—and where the fish prefer the fly, and not, 
as on the Namsen, spoons and Phantom minnows. 
The grand mass of rock called the “ Severn 
Sisters ” guards the entrance to the fjord into 
which another fine river flow.s. Until compara¬ 
tively recently, the Vefsen was chiefly remarkable 
as consisting practically of one pool; for although 
the foss is six or seven miles up from the fjord, 
and although a certain number of fish used to be 
killed on the rest of this stretch, far the greater 
number were got on the pool in question. Now, 
however, by the construction of a pass, salmon 
have access to an additional reach of the river, 
and it is intended by the same means to make a 
further addition. The Vefsen may be said to be 
the first valley wherein the playful mosquito 
flourishes, for whereas here and to the north 
netting is absolutely necessary at night in order 
to sleep in any comfort, on the Namsen there are 
comparatively few of these insect pests. On the 
upper reaches of the Tana they are bad enough in 
all conscience, for which we can personally vouch, 
and so on the Alien, but if anything the valley of 
the Reisen, we are inclined to think, bears the 
palm. 
The last-named stream, which flows into a fjord 
a few miles to the north-east of Tromsci, is 
celebrated also for the sporting character of its 
water; indeed, there are comparatively few 
anglers who would encounter for a second time 
the dangers and mosquitoes of the upper gorges 
of the river. The salmon ascend to the fall, 
sixty miles from the sea, and below this point the 
river rages between walls of rock which in places 
rise sheer from the water’s edge 600 and 800 feet. 
Only a very good head indeed can stand the 
precipices that have to be descended and 
scaled in order to get a fly on the water; in 
some cases the angler has to be let down by a 
rope, and in order to fish some of the pools, a 
raft must be extemporised on the spot. 
The mountain ranges in the neighbourhood of 
Kautokeino, near the frontier of Finland, give 
birth to three great rivers. Here are the head 
waters of the Muonio, the main branch of the 
Tornea, which, after a course of more than 300 
miles, enters the northern extremity of the Gulf 
of Bothnia, and hence flow the Alten and the Tana 
to the north. With the former of these two last- 
named rivers the name of the late Duke of Rox- 
borough will always be associated, and some of 
the bags made by the Duke and his friends on 
this famous river are among the marvels of Nor¬ 
wegian sport. On several occasions between 400 
and 500 pounds have fallen to the lot of a single 
rod in a day, and the year the Duke of Edinburgh 
visited the river, some 10,000 pounds of salmon 
were taken with the fly. 
With the exception of some fifty miles of its 
lower conrse, the Tana forms the frontier between 
Norway and Russia; it can hardly therefore be 
described as a Norwegian river, although it is 
invariably looked upon as such by English fisher- 
